Magic Mike’s Last Dance review: Director Steven Soderbergh has stripped Magic Mike of any grit he had in the first film

Magic Mike’s Last Dance

(15) 112 mins

★★☆☆☆

YOU know all those laughable films where a cast of beloved British characters go abroad?

Well, it seems the Americans are just as capable of such ill advised excursions.

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AP

In the third and (if the title is to be believed) final Magic Mike movie Channing Tatum’s stripper Mike Lane heads to London.

There he meets the kind of Brits that could only be conjured up by an American who has watched too many episodes of Downton Abbey and Absolutely Fabulous.

There is a wise butler, a whip smart teenage girl and an assortment of stuck up posh folk.

If it wasn’t for a montage of Tower Bridge, St Paul’s Cathedral and the London Eye you’d barely recognise this cartoonish version of England.

Stripped of grit

What brings Mike’s legendary hip thrusts to this side of the pond is an incredibly wealthy woman called Maxandra — played by Salma Hayek in full on pout mode.

Maxandra has been so mesmerised by his pulsing pectorals that she wants Mike to put on a strip show in the West End theatre she owns.

Unlike in the rightly popular original, the kind-hearted beefcake doesn’t have to put in much effort to win over the girl or anyone else for that matter.

In the Last Dance Channing’s character never puts a foot wrong and that’s a major misstep when it comes to creating drama.

It’s a surprise that Oscar winning director Steven Soderbergh has stripped Magic Mike of the grit found in the first film.

In its place is a deliberately silly romantic comedy that is funny even when it’s not intending to be.

The central thrust of the script is a female empowerment message, which has all the energy of an eco light bulb.

The problem with the film is the ditzy, rich and powerful Maxandra doesn’t come across as downtrodden.

The thong sized storyline, with minor hurdles put in Maxandra’s way, was always just a way to reach the finale where numerous muscle men get their kit off.

But the audience Magic Mike is aimed at might get the hump about it taking so long to get to the well choreographed strip show.

Ultimately, the laboured plot bumps make The Last Dance too much of a grind.

• Grant Rollings

BLUE JEAN

(15), 97mins

★★★★☆

IT’S the late eighties in Newcastle and secondary school PE teacher, Jean (Rosy McEwen) is living her life in two parts.

 One eats beans on toast in front of Blind Date every weekend and the other is openly snogging her girlfriend, Viv (Kerrie Hayes) in an underground gay bar.

This was a time when being homosexual was still seen as taboo, MPs were calling it a sin and the ‘Section 28’ legislation prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in schools.

As a result Jean feared she would lose her job if she was ever outed, but her girlfriend and their mates are social warriors, sticking their fingers up at bigoted Britain. 

This makes Jean uncomfortable and when a sassy new pupil starts at the school, Lois (Lucy Halliday), who secretly visits the same gay bar, her two lives become dangerously close to crossing.

Writer-director Georgia Oakley creates the perfect 1980s atmosphere of free spirits fighting against the repressed. McEwen’s performance is utterly compelling as the complicated Jean, who desperately wants to live an open life but has a constant fear of the consequences.

Women talking

(15) 104 mins

★★★★☆

OSCAR-nominated Women Talking and its impressive cast, including Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Frances McDormand, performed poorly at the US box office.

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Perhaps, it was something to do with a title which is about as tempting as Blokes Bantering or Listening To Politicians.

In truth much of this movie, inspired by true events at a God-fearing Mennonite colony which shuns mod-cons such as electricity, does involve women talking.

But it’s what they are saying and the talented actresses who are saying it that makes this such a powerful watch.

It begins with a voiceover telling us how the men used cow tranquilliser to rape the women and children as they slept.

The women must decide whether to do nothing, stay and fight or leave.

McDormand is little more than a cameo, but the deep rage of Foy’s vengeful Salome and Buckley’s obstructive Mariche makes this compulsive viewing.

The director Sarah Polley should be applauded for tackling the subject of sexual violence so sensitively – even if it means selling so few tickets.

• Grant Rollings